After this unplanned meeting with Berthea, Caroline set out again on her trip to the shops. She had a great deal to mull over, and when she returned to the flat she found that there was even more to wonder about. There was a note, slipped under the door, addressed to her. I am having a little gathering tonight, she read, just a few people who belong to a society of which I’m a member. Would you care to join us downstairs? Tea and sandwiches. 6.30, for about an hour. And it was signed, Basil (Wickramsinghe).
Chapter 14: Basil Wickramsinghe Throws a Little Party
Shortly after Caroline returned home from her unsettling cup of tea with Berthea Snark, a thin, rather dowdy-looking woman somewhere in her mid-thirties made her way to the front door of Corduroy Mansions, peered at the list of flats and their corresponding bells, and rang one. Within the building the bell sounded in the flat on the ground floor.
Basil Wickramsinghe, accountant and High Anglican, moved to his window and discreetly peered out. By craning his neck and standing far enough back he could just see who was calling upon him. There were some callers he did not like to receive and whose ringing would be ignored – local politicians soliciting votes being head of that list, just above so-called market researchers. Or his distant cousin, Anthony, an ear, nose and throat surgeon, with whom he had very little in common and who invariably outstayed his welcome. Today, however, he was expecting visitors – quite a number of them – and he could see that this was the advance guard in the shape of Gillian Winterspoon, who was coming early to help him with the sandwiches.
Gillian Winterspoon was the sort of woman who in the language of marriage banns would be called “a spinster of this parish”. She had met Basil during an advanced professional training weekend at the Great Danes Hotel near Maidstone; a weekend during which they had both wrestled with the intricacies of the latest taxation regulations affecting non-residents. It was exotic stuff as far as they both were concerned; neither had any involvement with the heady world of non-resident taxation – or non-taxation, as Basil so wittily called it during the tea break after the first session – but both needed the credit that attendance on the course brought and which the Institute of Chartered Accountants quite rightly required of its members lest any of them become cobwebby.
“I’d call all this the non-taxation of non-residents,” quipped Basil, “leading to non-revenue.”
Gillian Winterspoon, who had found herself standing next to him at the tea break, nervously scanning the assembled accountants to see if any of them might conceivably talk to her, had seized upon this remark with delight.
“That’s terribly funny,” she said. “You’re right. No taxation with non-representation. Perhaps we should all throw our tea into the Medway.”
Basil smiled at her. He appreciated both the compliment to his humour and the reference to the Boston Tea Party. He introduced himself, and she reciprocated. Each was relieved to find a friend in this room of others who appeared to know one another so well.
At the end of the weekend they were sitting next to one another at every session. Gillian was delighted to have found a man who appeared to enjoy her company – not a reaction she had encountered in many men, alas – and for his part, Basil found her mild manner undemanding. He was nervous of women and did not have a great deal of confidence in that sphere, especially when he found himself with high-powered woman accountants power-dressed in brisk business suits. Gillian gave rise to none of these anxieties.
They had found, too, an important common interest. Both attended a High Anglican church – in Basil’s case a local church in Pimlico, fortunately extremely high in its liturgical attitudes; in hers, one near her home on the fringes of Maida Vale. So it was no surprise that at the end of the conference on the taxation (non-taxation) of non-residents, Basil invited Gillian to attend a future meeting of the James I and VI Society (incorporating the Charles I Appreciation League). And it was equally unsurprising that Gillian accepted this invitation with alacrity and pleasure.
Within a few months Gillian had been elected to the committee of the Society, in the role of secretary, while Basil was chairman. This rapid rise to office suited her very well as it gave her a pretext for frequently contacting Basil, ostensibly in connection with the society’s business, but in reality because she was deeply in love with him and could think only of him. In her thoughts she addressed him as The Blessed Basil, an ecclesiastical status to which he was not, strictly speaking, entitled, but which she felt fully justified in conferring upon him. For he was blessed, she thought; he was kind, considerate, courteous and handsome. It was true that blessedness, and indeed saintliness, had nothing to do with looks, but she felt that somehow they helped. There were very plain saints, of course, but somehow they seemed less – how should she put it – less spiritually exciting than handsome saints.
St Sebastian was a case in point. He was always depicted as a young man of great physical beauty, clad only in a conveniently placed loincloth. He was extremely spiritual, thought Gillian; much more so than dear St Francis, who was somewhat homely – exactly the sort of saint whom a grateful animal might lick in appreciation.
Gillian had been incensed when a cousin of hers, a rather cynical woman who enjoyed making iconoclastic remarks, had suggested that many of the pictures of St Sebastian’s martyrdom were thinly disguised exercises in homoerotic art.
“I’m sure he didn’t wear quite as seductive a loincloth in real life,” this cousin had said. “Saints rarely did, you know.”
Gillian had bristled in her indignation. How did this woman know about saints’ underpants? It was ridiculous. “The point of the loincloth,” she observed, “was to show the arrows with which poor St Sebastian was pierced. That’s the whole point of the pictures. They remind us of his suffering in a very vivid way. If he were wearing clothes we wouldn’t see the arrows piercing his flesh.”
The cousin smirked. “But what evidence do we have that he was so … so lithely muscular? In real life, that is?”
“I’m not going to discuss this with you any further,” said Gillian.
Later, she had mentioned the disagreement to Basil, who had listened intently to her, and then sighed. “People don’t understand,” he said. “And of those who do not understand, there are some who do not understand because they will not understand.”
Gillian agreed with this wholeheartedly. “But at least we understand,” she said. “That is understood, I think.”
“Of course it is,” said Basil.
Oh, if only you understood what I feel, Blessed Basil, Gillian thought. But she suspected that he did not; or, rather, would not. In that respect he was like those people who he said did not understand because they did not want to understand.
That is my burden, she thought. And it’s the burden of so many women. Men simply will not see. And we have to wait in the wings for them to make up their mind, to decide whether they like us enough to confer the benefit of commitment upon us. Why do we put up with it? Why don’t we spell out to them that we’re fed up with waiting, that we’re not going to tolerate their detachment any more, that it’s going to be us, women, who are going to decide in future.
She sighed. That was not the way the world was – or certainly not for people like her.
Chapter 15: The Sudoko Remedy
James arrived at Corduroy Mansions earlier than he had anticipated. He had allowed himself more time than he needed to travel from his flat in Clerkenwell and had fifteen minutes in hand by the time he found himself outside Corduroy Mansions. Dee answered when he pressed the doorbell and buzzed him into the entrance. He noticed that something was going on in the ground-floor flat – a party, by the sound of it – but he did not linger and bounded up the stairs to Caroline’s flat. He was pleased that Dee was in; James liked her and had not seen her for a few weeks. Dee gave him news of the latest health food products, and occasional free samples too. Last time he saw her, she had given him a one-month course of a brain–power-enhancing supplement, ginkgo bi
loba, and he had taken it conscientiously until the bottle was empty, without any noticeable result. “Of course, you don’t really need this,” she had said to him. “There are lots of people I know who could do with a course of ginkgo. You’re really not one. Here’s some garlic as well.”
Dee opened the door to him when he reached the landing. As he came in, she bent forwards to give him a kiss. James winced.
“I’m not going to bite,” said Dee.
James was embarrassed. “I know that.”
“Then why not let me give you a little kiss? Caroline won’t be jealous.”
James blushed. “I don’t normally kiss,” he said. “It’s not just you. I don’t like all this kissing that goes on. Why not just shake hands?”
Dee laughed. “I won’t kiss you if you don’t want me to,” she said. “Anyway, come in.”
She took him into the kitchen, where she had been sitting at the table tackling a newspaper sudoko. James noticed that the puzzle was marked extremely easy.
“If you took ginkgo-what’s-its-name you’d be able to do difficult sudokos,” he said. “In fact, why don’t you sell ginkgo in little bottles marked Sudoko Remedy?”
Dee stared at him. “That’s a rather good idea,” she said.
“I wasn’t serious,” said James. “Just a joke.”
“No,” said Dee quickly. “It’s not a joke, James – it’s a really good idea. That’s exactly what they’ve done with echinacea, isn’t it?”
James was not sure what they had done with echinacea.
“They sell it as protection from infection while you’re travelling,” Dee explained. “Then they sell it as a protection against flu. And so on. It’s the same basic stuff, of course – it simply boosts your immune system. But you can package it in a hundred different ways.”
“Well,” said James. “I didn’t know about that. But will people who do sudokos want help? If they did, then surely they could just put the figures into their computers and the computers would come up with the solution.”
Dee shook her head. “That’s not the way they think,” she said. “People who do puzzles want to solve them themselves.”
James was not so sure. “So what about those gadgets that help with crosswords? You put in a couple of letters and it comes up with the solution for you.”
“No self-respecting crossword person uses one of those,” said Dee. “But every self-respecting crossword person would be quite happy to take something to help get their mind in gear. A cup of coffee, for instance. That would not be cheating. Neither would some ginkgo.” She paused. “And we could market a Crossword Remedy too.”
James smiled. “You’d get very rich,” he said. He looked at his watch. “Where’s Caroline?”
“She’s gone to a party,” Dee replied. “Or I think that’s what she said. Something about a drinks party. I wasn’t paying much attention.”
“But she’s meant to be having dinner with me,” said James. “We made a date over the phone.”
Dee shrugged. “Well, maybe she’s forgotten. I did that once, you know. Maybe she needs to take some ginkgo.”
“It’s not funny. I’m cooking dinner for her. Here. And she’s gone to a party.”
Dee’s instinct was to protect her flatmate. “Maybe I got it wrong,” she said. “I wasn’t really listening.”
“Well, she’s not here, is she?” said James. “She’s stood me up.”
“Oh come on, James. Anybody can get dates mixed up. I remember once—”
James interrupted her. “Something that’s arranged a week or two ahead, yes, you can forget about that sort of thing if you don’t put it in your diary. But not the same day.”
“Oh. Well,” said Dee.
James looked at his watch again. “It’s really inconsiderate. I was going to cook something and then we were going to watch a DVD together.” He paused. “Are you doing anything, Dee?”
Dee thought quickly. She would love to have dinner with James. She had nothing in the fridge except a small piece of cheddar and a tub of yoghurt. Anything would be better than that.
“Not really. Why?”
“I’ll take you out to dinner,” said James. “We could go to the Poule au Pot.”
“The Poule au Pot!” She had walked past the restaurant many times but of course she had never been able to go inside. Dee was permanently hard-up, and a meal out, even in a much more modest restaurant, was a rare treat for her.
“Yes,” said James. “Let’s go and see if they can take us. If they can’t, I know somewhere else. There’s a really nice Greek restaurant ten minutes away. Would that suit you?”
Anything would suit Dee, who felt only a slight pang of doubt as she went into her room to change. It’s her fault, she thought. She takes James for granted – anybody can tell that. If he belonged to me, I wouldn’t do that. I’d spoil him. I’d do everything for him. I’d make him really happy.
They left the flat and walked the short distance to the restaurant. It was not a busy night, as it happened, and a table was quickly found. They sat down, and James ordered a bottle of wine. Then, while waiting for their starters to appear, James said, “I’m really cross with Caroline, you know.”
Dee looked around her at the room. She was basking in the pleasure of being out for dinner, in an expensive restaurant, with somebody as good-looking and as generally nice as James. She turned her gaze to him.
“I don’t blame you,” she said quietly. “Poor you.”
Chapter 16: England Expects William to do his Duty
When William awoke the following morning, he did so with the realisation that this was a significant day. But it was one of those realisations, only too common, when the actual reason for the day’s significance fails to come immediately to mind. So might a politician, on the morning of his inauguration into high office, awake with a feeling that something was about to happen, but, in that curious stage between drowsiness and full wakefulness, not remember what lay ahead; or so might a prisoner, facing release after long years of incarceration, forget that the front door to freedom would open for him within hours. Yes, something important was due to happen, but what was it? It took a moment or two for him to remember: today was the day that he was due to meet his contact, following the instructions he had received.
Ever since the surprise visit from Angelica Brockelbank, former bookshop owner and now employee of MI6, William had been puzzling over the implications of what she had said. Although she had not been reticent in admitting that she worked in intelligence, and had been direct in her suggestion that MI6 wanted William to do something for them, she had been coy about saying exactly what it was.
“We can’t talk too openly here,” she had said, glancing about her at William’s kitchen, as if to imply that their conversation might be overheard.
William had been tempted to laugh. “What do you mean by that?” he asked. “Are you suggesting my flat’s bugged?”
Angelica looked at him with complete seriousness; she had not been joking – not at all. “You’d be astonished,” she said. “If I were to give you a list – even a highly abbreviated one – of the places in this city that are bugged, you’d be utterly astonished.”
William looked at her with amusement. These cloak and dagger people, he thought – too much imagination. On the other hand, there had been those journalists who had hacked into the telephones of prominent people. How dare they? They did not even have the excuse of protecting national security – which Angelica and her people could at least advance; they had been motivated by pure salacious interest or, in some cases, a desire to humiliate and embarrass public figures.
“But people’s private houses …” William began.
Angelica smiled. “An Englishman’s home is his castle? Not any more, William, not under our current masters. Remember that these are the people who want to keep a record of every mobile phone call, every single email you send, no matter how banal. The authorities want to know about it. They really do.
”
It seemed to William that Angelica was getting into her stride. What he was hearing was so unexpected, so out of the ordinary, that he sat meekly and listened. “And here’s another thing,” she went on. “The census. You may have noticed that there is pressure to ask people to disclose their sexual orientation in the census questionnaire. Yes, people would be asked whether they are gay or straight or whatever. What a cheek! What people are is their own business and nothing to do with the state or social researchers or anybody else really. Nothing. Sex is a private matter and adults should be allowed to do what they like without having the government breathing down their necks. And the same goes for religious beliefs. People are entitled to their private conscience, if that is what they wish.”